The Movie Boy Dustin Putman knows horror, and he salutes it this month with a new review every day.
For the entirety of October, TheMovieBoy.com will be updated daily with all-new content, including at least thirty-one full-length reviews of horror pictures–a collection of classics, lesser-known gems, and longtime favorites–that I have never previously covered; an additional smorgasbord of fresh (but not necessarily positive) capsule reviews; and an ongoing blog where I will tackle any number of horror-related subjects. Maybe I can help readers come up with ideas on what’s worth watching this October. Or maybe I can help them get in the mood for a holiday filled with ghosts, goblins, costumes, candy, and things that go bump in the night. Either way, the goal is to entertain and inform both die-hard horror fans, as well as the heretofore uninitiated who are interested in taking that first dip into a too-frequently underappreciated category of cinema. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll all (myself included) learn a little something, too.
I am not a horror fan, but Putman’s first choice is perfect, the silent classic Nosferatu. As he says, it may not be the first horror film, but it is the first influential one. It is essentially “Dracula,” but director F.W. Murnau did not want to pay royalties, so they changed the names. The mysterious Max Schreck starred (there is an urban legend that he really was a vampire — amusingly explored in “Shadow of the Vampire” with Willem Dafoe as Schreck) and it is every bit as creepy as any CGI-enhanced state-of-the-art special effects horror movie made today, nearly 80 years later.